Editorial – June 2017: Is naivety something we had in passing and just grew out of?

Hello everyone

Reading the latest TwoMorrows book ‘Hero-A-Go-Go!’ by Michael Eury about how camp the 1960s was, I couldn’t help wonder if I was either into it too much or didn’t recognise it as being as such. Granted I wasn’t even in my teens at that time and, in the UK, spoofing was a way of life. One only had to look at ITV’s TV series ‘The Avengers’ to know that although I have to confess I did take even that series seriously at the time. We also had our share of serious TV series and kitchen-sink dramas to balance things out so weren’t over-dosing on the camp phenomenon. We can also look back on things that far back and wonder were we that naïve back then? But then, so was everyone else. It isn’t like we were alone. Normality is what we have at any particular time in our lives and it was shared. If it was delusional then we shared the delusion. The rise of criticism to look at things differently was still growing in the public eye but still not enough to affect only a few people at a time, subject to the publication ie newspaper that was read. We were more accepting back then. It’s only when things get shaken up that we have to re-evaluate our take on things and how we accept reality. More so when things like people in authority weren’t so squeaky clean as we supposed. I guess that would cause problems in any decade. The image and reality were slowly dividing.

If anything, the common denominator in all our changes is fairness and that should be shared by all. Not that this is perfect but it contributes to how our lives have changed over the years. Our values were based on what we saw of the world through the box in the corner and the people who gave us the information. The divisions weren’t just based on colour but wealth as well. Things like jetsetters for a select few and was just an alien concept until plane fares dropped giving access to many and ceased to be extraordinary when you could afford to go and see places for yourselves. Mind you, my inability to travel still makes such a thing as flying still an alien concept to me. I could live in a bubble universe and not see much difference although know just as much second-hand.

How we see the world has changed by how much information we receive as well as where we get it from. The information market these days is such that even so-called celebrity trivia gets top billing over world events making everything topsy-turvy where priorities are concerned and puzzling to me. I doubt if anyone saw that coming when things were changing. How long before imaginary becomes more important than real news or information? Considering how people get engrossed in the likes of TV soaps and so-called ‘reality TV’, that’s probably happened already. I did wonder about some of my articles but there always tends to be a connection to our own reality.

All we need now is to be directly wired into our computers and let technology do the jobs for us and we won’t have to think for ourselves at all. Do we really want that to happen? There are signs that is happening. It’s what people are getting used to and not realising that people can manipulate that distortion for their own gains. I think even that is changing now but only to those who pay attention.

Looking at the poorer nations, not to mention the tyrannies that still exist, it’s still pretty obvious that we still don’t live in a fair world. They’ve always existed but we’re more aware of them now. The world is shrinking via the Internet and we’re seeing more of it through the media now. Saying that, I think we can surmise we are living in a changing world, with only the big question currently is such changes for the better or the worse? Will we one day look back to this decade as pivotal or just glad to have survived it? Would we also deem the answer to that question true of any decade? After all, the world is full of survivors. Are we willing to throw away the lifebuoys and making the wrong selections? We’re already seeing some of the effects of that and being told its permanent. Since when has anything but death been permanent in our world?

Naivety is something we grow out of as get older and more experienced. With trends changing in a matter of weeks or months than years these days, I’m more amazed why some take off but that’s the herd instinct for you.

The problems of adjusting to one type of reality also means not looking for alternatives. At least not ones that you can visualise the pros and cons of. Instead, we have something pretty much like we have today and a total distrust of anything establishment. Does that make the anti-establishment any better? It’s called ‘anti-establishment’ for very good reasons because it’s extreme right which means total rule with no compromises not for being totally correct. It doesn’t give you any rights (sic) strangely enough.

Word associations are falling apart with the young which is always worrying. Open the door too far in one direction and, like Pandora’s box, a lot harder to close later. It’s a crazy world where now it’s the choice of the better of two evils depending on which is deemed an evil. One day we will wonder what happened to the good people? There were some in politics once upon a time. Whether a good personality is what is needed these days has to be proven but they should be given a chance in all the craziness in the world these days.

The worse scenario is if it builds on the wrong things, it falls apart worse than a house of cards. Making the right choices is the burden of a democratic society. Voting accumulates a decision and you really have to hope a collective decision is the right one. On that scary thought…

 

Thank you, take care, good night and rationality is the way of the sane.

 

Geoff Willmetts

editor: SFCrowsnest.org.uk

 

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